Hello!
I read a short summary about 'How to Encourage Workplace Learning' by Soundview and think it's useful for us to read and think along ka.
The main reference is from Peter Senge's 5 Learning Disciplines – Systems Thinking, Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Building Shared Vision, and Team Learning.
Let me share what struck me in this piece of summary ka:
- Successful companies understand they can learn from their employees.
- Learning is an attitude.
- Leaders of high-performing companies share their expectations about learning...what the companies can provide and what the employees will do on their parts.
- Develop employees who love to learn.
- Much learning is achieved outside of formal settings.
As I read through this article, I began to get more interested in thinking of it further in our context ka.
- Responsibility for learning resides with the learner!
This has become so crucial in our settings. Parents and teachers alike feel they're responsible for the students' performances. Nothing is wrong with that but the shared responsibilities aren't seen so much for the students to feel it's their own future and their responsibilities. They should feel blessed to be taken care of by so many people and start to get more serious to learn (not just for the exams and the class ranks!)
- Learning begins with knowledge about self!
It stresses that the right questions should be, 'what would you like to learn and why?' One needs to understand his/her own styles of learning, values, beliefs, and interests to pursue learning successfully.
I think our schools and universities can do more to provide the right attitude to learn better, not just to learn more-- starting from platforms for their students to find their own interests through observations, discussions, simple research, etc. More time is devoted to teaching for tests so we miss the key points to promote learning glands to grow and be embedded in our students so when they grow further, they don't need to struggle to go back to basic while striving to survive in their ever changing and challenging environments.
- Establishing a culture of learning needs a positive learning environment (Dr. Daniel Tobin)
An example is a CEO to pick up a book and ask the team who they all could apply it to their workplace. Everyone should learn to ask this question, 'What did we learn since our last meeting that helps us improve our performance? People at all levels should ask themselves as well, 'What did you learn at work today?'
I like the simple questions that some of us have been asking ourselves or our students or our colleagues every day. The last question is a self-reflective activity, which is so useful to all of us and we need to do much more for our students to think harder. It isn't just about what one has learned, but go further to how to use it and how to link it with other info/knowledge/experience we've already had ka.
-The responsibility of a leader according to John C. Maxwell is to invest in yourself first, be a continual learner, create a growth environment for the people you lead.
Lead by your personal actions lae na ka while creating a fun and exciting learning environment!
I think our university/ministry leaders can't possibly show themselves as a learning leader as much as they can ka. High level leaders don't really have opportunities to read as much anymore due to ceremonial functions, day-to-day problem solving, 'daily policy' imposed by higher-ups, etc.
They can however, gather their daily experiences into some form of learning to share, they may set up some reading groups to follow issues that all need to know, or they may have several who help craft their ideas into writing or some sort of storytelling to discuss further actions ka.
Anyhow, to be self-motivated, we do need to nurture our kids from as young as possible when all have shared responsibilities from parents, relatives, communities to teachers and administrators and employers ka.
Happy time working na ka.
